EDITORIAL: Endorsement: For lieutenant governor, no one

Insomuch as a race for lieutenant governor can ever be interesting, this is a notable year in Connecticut as four candidates vie for their respective party nominations for the chance to succeed Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele, who is running for governor.

On the Republican side, Fedele was the only one of the three candidates running for governor who actually chose a lieutenant governor "running mate," Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton.

Separately, businesswoman Lisa Wilson-Foley of Avon took the rare if not unheard of step of deciding to run for lieutenant governor independently, instead of "with" a gubernatorial candidate.

In Connecticut, of course, voters make a separate choice in the lieutenant governor race but then vote on the two jobs as a combined "ticket" come November.

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Four years ago, Simsbury First Selectman Mary Glassman ran for lieutenant governor "with" Dan Malloy, but ended up on the ticket with New Haven Mayor John Destefano after she won and Malloy lost.

This year, Glassman is running with Ned Lamont, but the situation could easily be reversed. Lamont could win the nomination for governor, but be on a ticket with Malloy's running mate, state Comptroller Nancy Wyman, who has better name recognition than Glassman and a long history of winning statewide elections.

Each candidate brings strengths and weaknesses to this campaign.

In looking at the Republican race, for example, Boughton is smart, knows his stuff, and would bring administrative prowess to the job. His record on immigration enforcement in Danbury and racial profiling, however, is so troubling that we could not in good conscience recommend him for this job. And he is inconsistent in his description of how illegal immigration even affects his city, on one hand saying that it is a drain on services, on the other bragging that Danbury has the lowest crime and unemployment in the state despite the presence of between 5,000 and 11,000 "illegals."

Wilson-Foley brings management success in the private sector to the race, something that stands out when every other candidate is, in effect, a career politician. Her grasp on policy and the details of state government are not there yet, however. We would love to see her in the state Senate, for example, but not, yet, a heartbeat away from being governor.

Which brings us to this:

We endorse no one for lieutenant governor.

But rather, endorse the idea of eliminating the position altogether.

None of the candidates we talked to had a good or lengthy description of what the job entails, because there is no job description, really, other than breaking tie votes in the state Senate.

Every election cycle, candidates for governor talk about the important role their lieutenant governor will play in the administration, and for many years, if not forever, the lieutenant governor has been marginalized to irrelevancy. They are not part of policy making, management, state budget negotiations. They have barely even had a presence at ceremonial events.

So let's eliminate the job altogether.

Yes, several lieutenant governors in modern Connecticut have ascended to the governor's job due to unforeseen circumstances. But it is easy enough to put an alternative succession plan in place for that. In some states, the president of the Senate takes over.

Until it can be eliminated, either reduce the lieutenant governor's budget from more than $500,000 a year to $0, and/or follow Republican gubernatorial candidate Oz Griebel's suggestion and have them double as the commissioner (if qualified) of one of the state's agencies.